Our recent publications on the Southern Hemisphere (SH)[1] were largely engendered by the intensification of geopolitical risks in the global economy and the imperatives of seeking new alliance configurations and platforms that would serve to establish new communication lines for economic diplomacy. But as we advanced the concepts of economic cooperation across the Southern Hemisphere, the one area that has not been fleshed out as much was the operational framework through which such hemispheric/regional cooperation could be pursued. We address this issue in the current publication by proposing a platform formed by some of the largest economies in the Hemisphere that could potentially coordinate their efforts in key international platforms and organizations such as the WTO and the G20.
In our view, one of the ways to operationalize the concept of greater economic integration across the Southern Hemisphere is to bring together the largest economies in the region that are also the respective members of the G20 platform. This includes: Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and Australia – a group of economies that may be termed as the “Southern Five” (S5)[2]. Within the G20 these economies have already cooperated extensively across a wide array of initiatives, including those pertaining to environmental protection. One such initiative is the Oceans 20 (O20) engagement group within the G20 – a group initiated by Indonesia’s presidency in 2022 and established under the Brazilian presidency in 2024 that targets the advancement of ocean sustainability, climate action and the “blue economy”. All S5 economies have some of the most extensive coastlines in the Hemisphere, most are bi-oceanic and some are even tri-oceanic (Australia and South Africa – if the Southern Ocean is included). The S5 is hence in a position to play a crucial role in the environmental agenda pertaining to ocean sustainability within the G20 platform.
Interestingly, there is already a somewhat similar group of countries composed of G20 economies, namely MIKTA – Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey and Australia. This group brings together advanced and developing/emerging markets, and just like the S5 could serve as a potential connection between the Global North and the Global South as well as a platform for strengthening the global stature of “middle powers”. Compared to the MIKTA grouping, however, the S5 may have the benefit of greater regional/hemispheric identity as well as commonality in some of the key objectives in the international economic agenda, including with respect to environmental policy and agriculture.
In this respect, apart from the cooperation in the G20, S5 work closely in other international economic platforms such as the WTO. In particular, all S5 are members of the Cairns group in the WTO that aims to promote trade liberalization in agriculture via improving market access within the WTO as well as through reducing export subsidies and trade-distorting domestic support. Apart from the S5 economies, the Cairns group includes another 5 countries from the Southern Hemisphere (the majority of the influential group’s members are from the Southern Hemisphere), which may further strengthen the case for creating a common SH “group in negotiations” in the WTO.
In the environmental sphere, all S5 economies apart from Indonesia work together in the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). At the same time, Indonesia together with Australia and Brazil cooperates in the Blue NDC Challenge – a global initiative to integrate ocean-based climate solutions into national climate plans (NDCs) with the aim of accelerating marine conservation.
Apart from the prominence in ocean sustainability, all S5 countries are among the largest economies (globally and across the Southern Hemisphere) in terms of the total surface area as well as the area accounted for by land degradation. The latter, in particular deforestation, afflicts all S5 economies to a significant degree, most notably (in terms of total degraded area) Australia, Argentina and Brazil. In view of the formation of a BRICS platform to counter land degradation[3] (launched by Brazil during its BRICS presidency in 2025) there may be scope for the S5 to work with BRICS on advancing this agenda in COP and G20 platforms.
Given the weight of the S5 countries in the Southern Hemisphere, their joint actions could materially impact the ecological and economic dynamics across that region. S5 accounts for nearly 2/3 of total land area in the Southern Hemisphere (Antarctica excluded) – hence the significance of land restoration initiatives for the ecological balance of the wider Hemisphere. The same pattern is observed with respect to the GDP distribution in the Southern Hemisphere – more than 2/3 is accounted for the S5 economies (higher than the corresponding ratio in the NH), which implies that with greater economic integration coordinated measures to boost the regional economy can have a significant impact on the regional economic trends.
Another important advantage of the S5 formation is its capability to scale its policy initiatives across their respective regional integration arrangements, namely Mercosur in the case of Brazil and Argentina, South African Customs Union (SACU) in the case of South Africa, ANZCERTA or PACER+ in the case of Australia and ASEAN in the case of Indonesia. There may also be a wider platform for “integration of integrations” that brings together CELAC, AfCFTA, PACER+ and ASEAN. Such an amalgamation of integration blocs may be viewed as one of the possible modifications of the SH+ format that comprises vast swathes of regions in the Northern Hemisphere and that effectively blurs the boundaries between the two halves of the world economy.
Overall, it appears that the S5 economies have already attained a reasonable level of coordination across a number of international forums and organizations. A more region-focused cooperative platform for the Southern Hemisphere would make sense in balancing the world economy, given the Northern focus of most of the alliances to date, with global platforms such as the G7 or the G10 located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. In building closer economic ties in each of the two Hemispheres, the difference seems to be that while in the North a key barrier to greater trade and investment is geopolitics and historical rivalries, in the South it is mostly the maritime distance factor. And while distance remains a daunting barrier globally, it is arguably easier to bridge through technological advancements and the development of digital economy compared to a seeming lack of recourse for the geopolitical havoc that is raging to the North of the equator.
[1] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/hemispheric-perspectives-from-down-under/
[2] As an aside, the positioning of these five economies as well as their “luminosity” (or economic weight) in the Southern Hemisphere may be likened to the Southern Cross constellation that appears on the national flags of such S5 economies as Australia, Brazil and Argentina (at the regional/provincial level).
[3] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/brics-to-create-a-platform-for-land-restoration/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
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